


Family Don’t End With Blood (or Death)

by sanctuary_for_all



Series: We Write Our Own Story (a.k.a. Team Free Will 3.0, Expanded Edition) [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: And I thought hell, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, I just needed this so badly, Missing Scene, While I'm already in here...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:01:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27693826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanctuary_for_all/pseuds/sanctuary_for_all
Summary: Jack meets the rest of the family.
Relationships: Jack Kline & Bobby Singer, Jack Kline & pretty much the rest of the family
Series: We Write Our Own Story (a.k.a. Team Free Will 3.0, Expanded Edition) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2025290
Comments: 2
Kudos: 65





	Family Don’t End With Blood (or Death)

**Author's Note:**

> Technically, this is set before the first fic in the series, but to me it feels to "missing scene" to be the first fic in a series. So consider it a fill-in?

Bobby didn’t plan on telling the boys even when he did finally see them upstairs (which had better not be for a _hell_ of a lot of years, yet) but the whole mess with Chuck disappearing everyone was actually a damn sight worse than even they realized.

See, when all those folks popped out of existence? Not a single one of them showed up in heaven. Not _one_. You wouldn’t know that unless you had an eye both topside _and_ back on earth, which meant the people who did know included maybe three angels, Jack’s mama, and the crew who considered Harvelle’s Roadhouse home base. Turned out Charlie and Ash where a hell of a team when it came to bending the rules so hard you could hear the metal scream, and Kevin had done some of his own tweaking when his mama had finally let him go and he’d made it upstairs. With all the shit that had been going on upstairs it wasn’t like there were a lot of angels left to pay attention anyway.

When they were damn sure they hadn’t just missed them in a spot not covered by Charlie’s cameras, they sat down to figure out what the hell to do.

“So our best guess is that they’re just… gone, right?” Jo looked around at the rest of them, trying like hell to sound brave. “There’s no way _everyone_ could have ended up in hell.”

“Maybe some of them did, though?” Charlie offered, the hope in her voice making Bobby’s chest ache. “I mean, normally being sent to hell wouldn’t be a bright spot, but Rowena seemed pretty cool. I think she’d take care of them, especially once she found out how they got there.

Bobby’s jaw tightened at the thought. “I should’ve rung that skinny bastard’s neck when I had a chance.”

Ellen whapped him in the back of the head. “He was still God, Bobby, even if he was pretending to be a skinny little twerp. All that would have done is make you show up here that much faster.”

Bobby rubbed a hand over his face, something too close to grief threatening to choke him. Whoever said you stopped worrying when you were dead didn’t know _shit._

Kevin swallowed, saying what they were all thinking. “Is there _anything_ we can do?”

The answer, unfortunately, had turned out to be no. They had a pretty decent set-up in heaven, but they couldn’t really do much beyond that (if they had, they would’ve yanked Cas out of the Empty every damn time he’d gotten tossed in there.) So they mostly watched, worried, tried to keep Jack’s mama from worrying, and did their best to figure out as much as they could.

They knew about the master plan a hell of a lot faster than Chuck did – he might’ve been God, technically, but the Roadhouse crew knew those boys a hell of a lot better – but they still weren’t quite expecting what happened when the official power switch was finished. It was like a sonic boom, if that boom was made up of good weed and pink unicorn glitter, and when it was gone it felt like the sky clearing up after a storm. Like it had been hard to breathe this whole damn time, but no one had realized it until they drew in that first clean lungful of air.

Missouri’s eyes had gone wide, staring like she was looking at something they couldn’t even see on Charlie’s viewscreens. “That boy…” she breathed. “That Castiel was right when he said he was one of the good ones.”

Ellen’s eyes were on Charlie’s screens, smiling a little. “Well, he’s a hell of an improvement over the original model, that’s for damn sure.”

Jo’s brow lowered as she listened to the conversation the boys were having. “Wait, does that bit about staying out of the story mean he’s not going to visit us, either?” She frowned. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. He’ll be all alone out there.”

“Well, technically he has Amara, but from everything I saw she’s not really great at the whole ‘being there for people’ thing.” Charlie shook her head. “I get what she was trying to do with Dean’s mom, but if you know Dean at all you know that he will put off emotional revelations for _years_ if he’s not ready to have them.”

Bobby frowned at the screens as well, watching the way Dean’s shoulders were already hunching up defensively. One more loss he was trying to muscle his way through. “He’s a Winchester, though, which means he’ll try to deal with it all on his own unless we slap some sense into him.”

“if we’re going to do that, now would be a _really_ good time,” Kevin cut in, the agitation in his voice making everyone switch to one of the screens showing the camera feeds they had going in heaven. “Because he just popped up here, and there are at least three angels I can see who must have sensed it. They’re already heading straight for him.”

Everyone looked at each other, not needing to say what they were all thinking. The angels that were still hanging around weren’t _too_ bad, for the most part, but they still had just as many daddy issues as they ever did. Bobby wasn’t sure if they were going to try and kill the kid or ask to be adopted, but either way it was gonna turn into a mess _really_ damn fast.

Before any of them said a word, Charlie stood. “Dr. Badass!”

Ash poked his head out of his back room. “Yes, Queenie?”

She gave him a serious look. “We’ve got to go pick up God.” At Ash’s frown, she made an exasperated noise. “Jack’s the new God. And he’s got at least three angels incoming, and more if we don’t move fast.”

Ash’s expressioned sharpened in interest. “Say no more, my Queen.” Then they snapped their fingers at the same moment and disappeared from the room.

Bobby sighed, watching them go. “I still don’t know how they do that.”

“Charlie’s working on the theory that souls are just energy,” Kevin explained, not for the first time. “And if you can transmit information in wireless data bursts, then you should be able to do the same thing with—”

Bobby held up a hand to stop him. “When you say ‘wireless data bursts’ my brain shuts down.”

Ellen smirked affectionately. “No surprise there.”

Jo smiled, patting Kevin’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. most of us understand what you’re talking about.”

She’d barely had time to finish the comment before Charlie and Ash reappeared with Jack between them. He blinked, looking around at all of them, and when he met Bobby’s eyes something inside him settled. “Bobby Singer,” he said in that soft voice of his, then nodded. “I know the version of both you and Charlie that came from Apocalypse World, but I also know you from Sam and Dean’s thoughts. Even now, memories of you are still very close to the surface.” He paused, looking around again. “They think of all of you.”

Bobby’s throat tightened. “Well, we think about them, too.” He gestured to the computer screens. “Which is how we knew you were in trouble.”

He looked at the screens, smiling a little. “It’s possible I still do not understand everything about how heaven works, but I do know that you’re not supposed to be able to do that.” He looked at Ash, then at Charlie. “I know you’re not supposed to do what you did, either. You were both human.”

Charlie grinned, patting Jack on the chest. “I know you don’t know me well yet, kiddo, but hacking heaven is a _cakewalk_.”

“Useful, too, especially when the angels decide they want to be dicks.” Ash stepped back, giving them all a vague gesture that might have either been a wave or a salute. “Welcome to heaven, God-Jack. Let me know if we’re gonna blow up something.”

Jack watching him go as he disappeared into the back room, then turned back to the rest of the group with a frown. “I understand that angels can sometimes be dicks, but what I felt from those angels was different. They were… desperate. In pain.” The frown turned worried. “I felt it even from earth. I didn’t know where to go, but I came here because I thought I might be able to help.”

Ellen and Bobby looked at each other, then Ellen turned back to Jack. “Angels… they haven’t had someone to lead them in a long time. It’s made them kind of…” She waved her hand back and forth.

Now Jack looked almost confused. “But isn’t it better to have no leader than a bad one?”

Jo moved closer. “You know that feeling when you’re a kid and a lot of big, scary things are happening around you? And there’s a part of you trying to be brave, but there’s another part of you that really just wants your parents to show up and save you?” At Jack’s nod – it was easy to forget sometimes that he was actually about four in some ways – she gave him a look that said she understood it, too. “I think the angels feel like that all the time. Some of them just want a hug, and some of them are really mad that dad never showed up, but deep inside they all kind of feel that way.”

Jack nodded again, some sort of serenity draining out of his face, and in that moment it wasn’t hard at all to think of him as a little kid. “I understand,” he said finally, so quietly Bobby could barely hear it. “I feel that way, too.”

Watching him, Bobby’s chest hurt. Thing was, a part of him always saw Dean and Sam as little kids, too. It was part of why he and Kelly got along as well as they did. “Well, we might not be your mama, Cas, or those idiot boys of mine, but that doesn’t mean you’re alone.” Smiling a little, he gently but firmly pushed Jack into one of the barroom chairs. “We might not have had the chance to meet you back when we were alive, but we’re still your family.”

He looked around at all of them, a faintly bewildered light in his eyes. “You do know that I’m Lucifer’s son, right? And I killed Mary Winchester?”

They all looked around at each other. They checked on Mary and John sometimes, but the two of them mostly kept to themselves. No one wanted to say it – and had once, in a shouting match no one else was around for – but pretty much everyone here preferred it that way.

It was Jo who finally waved a hand and found the safest way to say it. “You were pretty much soulless when it happened. Sam was _really_ creepy when he was soulless, and none of us hold that against him.”

“And none of us here give a damn about the Lucifer thing,” Bobby added, grateful that they were back on ground he was more comfortable with. “My own dad was a bastard of the highest order, so if you ever want to talk I could probably manage it.”

“He’ll probably whap you upside the head,” Ellen added gently. “But he means it in the most loving way.”

Jack’s eyes were wet as he looked back and forth between all of them. “I…” He seemed to catch himself, and Bobby could practically see him start to pull away. “I probably shouldn’t even be here. Chuck always _messed_ with things, and I don’t want to—”

“Nope,” Charlie said brightly, cutting him off. He might be God, but he was pretty sure Charlie saw him as more of a little cousin or nephew. “Winchesters don’t do well when you leave them on their own. We all love you enough to make sure the next self-destructive sacrificial ‘I must take on the fate of the world’ cycle never gets the chance to start.”

“I would just let it happen,” Kevin added, almost apologetic. “These guys are very hard to say no to.”

Jack swallowed. “You know I’m not actually a Winchester, right?”

Ellen laughed at that. “Oh, honey, you are _so_ a Winchester.”

Jack turned to Bobby, almost pleading. “When I get involved, I make things worse.” He gave him a pleading look. “You’re all wonderful people. You don’t want me to get involved.”

Charlie and Jo both looked offended at that. “You did just _save the world_ , you know,” Jo said indignantly.

Charlie sighed. “I love Dean, but it might be better for your peace of mind if you try to be a little _less_ like him.”

Bobby just whapped Jack upside the head, then pulled out a chair and sat down across from him. “We are _family_ , kid,” he said firmly, looking Jack square in the eye. “Family means that we are there for you even if you fuck up. It _also_ means we tell you when you’re being too damn hard on yourself, which you’re doing right now. You are a _damn_ good kid, and you’ll be a hell of a lot better God than the world’s had before this.” 

Jack blinked, eyes wet. “How can you be sure of that? I can’t even be sure of that, and I’m supposed to be _God_.”

Bobby wrapped a hand around the back of Jack’s neck, his own throat going tight. “I have been watching you since the _second_ you were born, kiddo. I know you as well as I know those boys downstairs, and I believe in you just as hard.”

Jack swallowed, tears streaming down his face now, but something inside him seemed to have eased. “I want to go get Cas out of the Empty,” he said finally. “I know it probably counts as meddling…”

Charlie grinned, pressing a kiss against the top of his head. “Chuck meddled because he was a bad writer. You want to meddle because you’re a nice person. It’s different.”

“Absolutely.” Missouri nodded. “The world needs more love, baby. You’ll only make things better if you pour a little more out there.”

Jack took a deep breath, then nodded. “I want to get Cas out of the Empty, then I want to go see my mom. Then I want to figure out how to make heaven better, both for the angels and all the humans up here.” He looked around at all of them. “I would really like it if all of you could help me with that.”

They all grinned, and this time Bobby spoke for all of them. “I think we could manage that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come check out my [original fiction,](https://jennifferwardell.wixsite.com/mybooks) my [blog,](http://jennifferwardell.blogspot.com) or say hi to me on [Tumblr](http://sanctuaryforalluniverses.tumblr.com)!


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